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The Clow File

Clow Water Systems Co. makes and sells ductile iron pipe and flanged fabricated pipe for treatment plants and underground pipe uses. James B. Clow and Sons was founded in 1878 as a large plumbing supply distributor in Chicago. A plant opened in Coshocton in 1910. It is a division of McWane Inc., which bought the Clow Corporation in 1985. The 110-acre facility, including 25 acres from the recent purchase of the former Pretty Products warehouse, is at 2266 S. Sixth St. Buildings account for more than 900,000 square feet on the site, including the 400,000-square-foot warehouse formerly used by Pretty Products. The plant has about 400 workers, down from about 500 employees in 2007. The plant can make pipe from four inches in diameter to 36 inches in diameter and from a quarter-inch thick to an inch thick. The heaviest pipe the plant makes weighs more than 4,000 pounds. The plant melts more than 100,000 tons of scrap material per year. Pipes are sold to distributors, who then sell to contractors. About 70 percent of sales are to distributors, with the remaining 30 percent being straight to contractors. For more information on Clow, go to www.clowwatersystems.com.

The Industry Series

The Coshocton Tribune is profiling manufacturing companies and other local product makers within Coshocton County. Previously featured were SanCasT, Novelty Advertising, Organic Technologies, Jones Metal, Liberty Pottery, Pearl Valley Cheese, CASCO and River Ridge Leather Co. The Kraft Foods Coshocton plant, which produces Oscar Mayer bacon for the international food company, is targeted for June’s profile.

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Tom Crawford, general manager of Clow Water Systems, sees the work the ductile iron pipe producer does as more interesting than the average person might.

“It’s a great industry, because it provides something that’s essential for the entire country,” he said. “You turn on your water tap, you take that for granted, but everything that goes into the infrastructure to supply that is amazing.”

For more than 100 years, the local plant, now a subsidiary of McWane Inc., has made pipe for treatment plants and underground uses.

Crawford has been general manager for about a year and a half. He started his career with McWane in Coshocton in 2002, working locally for about nine months. However, he never forgot the area and said he jumped at the chance to come back.

“I think the thing I really appreciate is what a great work force we have. The people here give you an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay,” he said. “I think it just goes with the area, quite frankly. Some of the workers say ‘you tell us what you want and we’ll get you there.’ If I put a goal out there, we’re likely to achieve it.”

Major employer

Clow has about 400 employees, down from about 500 in 2007. Crawford said the firm has “right sized” the business given the economic situation in the country. He doesn’t envision the factory getting any smaller. Some summer help is being hired now, he said, because of product demand and to give workers extended break from the heat.

McWane has two other plants similar to Clow. One is in Utah and the other in New Jersey. A fourth plant was closed down during the recession.

“We’re the workhorse plant. We’re the biggest plant. We’re the go-to plant,” Crawford said of Clow’s importance to McWane. “We make more products in more sizes than anybody else. A lot of that is because of the success (Clow) has had. Our workforce is good. Our ability to execute is good.”

Crawford said half the workforce has been with the plant for 20 years or more. The longevity provides a solid backbone of experience, he said, but he also is looking for the next generation.

He said the firm is offering summer internships for college students. As technology advances, Crawford said the company needs people with mechanical and electrical engineering backgrounds to help with increased automation.

The local plant also is in the process of expanding, as it will be adding another McWane subsidiary this year, McWane Poles. Renovations are underway at Clow and the former Pretty Products warehouse for the manufacturing and shipping of ductile iron poles to carry overhead electric lines. Crawford said the division should be up and running in about a year.

“When it’s all said and done, that’s going to be a $7 million to $10 million commitment,” Crawford said.

For the pipe side, Crawford said it’s all about predicting what customers are going to need as the industry changes in the next 10 to 20 years. A main focus, he said, is to get costs down to compete with plastic pipe. Iron pipe lasts longer, but plastic pipe is cheaper.

Making a thinner-walled pipe that is just as strong as pipes with thicker walls are now is a way to get costs down because it would take less iron. Crawford said in the past few years, the cost of scrap metal used in the process has quadrupled to about $400 per ton, causing the firm’s costs to rise, too.

“Our casting floor is not capable of doing that. We don’t have the machines,” Crawford said of making thinner pipe. “We’re looking to invest somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 million in a brand new casting floor where we make the pipes, to be able to do those types of things.”

The process

Environmental initiatives have been popular with companies for the past several years. They are nothing new to Clow, which makes its pipes almost exclusively out of recycled scrap metal.

What are called white goods arrive to Clow in trucks and are put in an area behind the main work building. The goods include refrigerators, washing machines, dryers, shredded cars and more. The plant melts down more than 100,000 tons of scrap material annually.

“It’s one thing we’re trying to emphasize,” Crawford said. “Even if our pipe is 100 years old, you can pull it back out of the ground, remelt it and make it into brand new pipe. It’s continuous.”

Crawford said Clow’s metal pipe is more durable and lasts longer than similar plastic products. A nodular graphite is included to make ductile iron, which is more malleable and not as brittle as regular cast iron.

The scrap metal goes to a bucket, travels up a rail and is placed into a cupola furnace. A type of carbon-based fuel called coke is used to heat the furnace and melt the metal and other elements down. The molten metal comes out a tap hole at about 2,800 degrees. Water circulating around the outside of the cupola cools it.

From there, it’s off to the bubbling pot, which has a limestone blanket over the top. It takes the sulfur out of the iron. A holding ladle keeps the molten metal until it’s ready for a transfer ladle. The giant metal buckets whizzes across the plant to one of six machines. The metal is poured into a backup ladle and then to a quadrant ladle designed to hold one pipe worth of metal.

The metal from the quadrant ladle is poured down the shaft to the front of the machine. It forms around a sand core to create the pipe. Clow makes pipes four inches to 36 inches in diameter. The sizes also can be made in varying thicknesses, from a quarter-inch thick to an inch thick. The heaviest pipe the company makes weight more than 4,000 pounds.

The pipe is picked up by a crane after coming out of the machine and is transferred to an annealing oven. This heat treatment is what makes the iron malleable and ductile. Water jets cool the hot iron pipe as it exits the oven.

The pipes then have sockets fitted and are tested for quality, inspected for dimensions and lined with cement. Excess cement is cleaned out and the pipe is heated again to dry the cement. Pipes are painted on the inside and out, bundled and then readied for shipping.